


Tea and Company

by Sarren



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 13:37:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20743082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarren/pseuds/Sarren
Summary: Yaz loves spending time with the Doctor.





	Tea and Company

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shopfront](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shopfront/gifts).

Banners in unfamiliar fabrics, designs and languages hang over the various market stalls. Aliens that look like they wouldn’t be out of place at a motorcycle club back home rub shoulders with beings that Yaz couldn’t even have imagined existing before the Doctor scooped them up and carried them off to a life of full of wonder and danger. She’s wondering what purpose that giant translucent ball at the next stall serves, when claw like appendages materialise in the middle and she realises, from the way the claw-beaked vendor is chirping, that the pulsing blue patterns must be that being’s way of communicating. Yaz nods, pleased with her deduction. She’s really getting the hang of this space travel thing.

“It’s nice, this.”

“Hm?” The Doctor peers up at her from under a fall of blonde hair. She’s bent over a stall, examining a selection of rather dull looking objects. If Yaz had to guess, she’d say they were parts to some mechanical device or small vehicle, to go by the hydrocarbon odour that’s hanging about. Not worth the Doctor’s rapt attention, not like the rest of the colourful marketplace, full of stuff and people that Yaz can’t even begin to identify, but astonishing and exciting, just like her companion. Yaz’s eye is caught by a couple of rhinoceros-looking creatures wearing what seems to be yellow tulle, holding hands. She forces herself to close her mouth before she’s caught gaping like a gauche tourist.

The Doctor’s still looking at her. Yaz waves her hand to indicate everything around them. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” she says.

Graham and Ryan hadn’t wanted to join them. “Seen enough markets to last a lifetime, with Grace,” Graham had said, but with that wistful expression he always got when Grace was mentioned. Ryan had nodded emphatically in agreement. They’d opted to go exploring the short-range orbital space craft salesyard they’d passed down the road. Ryan’s eyes had been as big as saucers. “Not until you get your driver’s licence,” Yaz heard Graham say as the two of them had wandered off, but Graham had looked pretty eager himself. Probably just as well they don’t carry money on them.

Yaz wasn’t sorry to see them go. For all that the TARDIS seems to have all the room in the world inside it, they tend to congregate in the control room where the Doctor's inevitably to be found tinkering with the console, or just crooning softly to the machine. It’s not that the TARDIS isn’t comfortable, but when she's alone in her room or ventures into the depths, exploring, she can’t help being reminded of its alienness, of the fact that she's literally universes away from home, from her family, from everything familiar. She thinks that’s probably what draws Graham and Ryan there so often too. When they’re with the Doctor, who’s always happy to see them, and tell them stories, and calls them ‘fam’, Yaz doesn’t feel that aloneness.

That’s when they’re on board, though. They seem to spend very little time actually hanging out in the TARDIS. When they’re not almost getting blown up by mines or sucked into space, they’re running for their lives, or rescuing princes-in-distress, or preventing the actual destruction of planets.

Not that they don’t get downtime. A few weeks ago, they’d saved a colony of penguin-like creatures from an undersea monster, nearly freezing to death in the process. They’d been huddling together in a small boat, shivering under space blankets as the small craft taking them back to the TARDIS cut through the icy waters when the DOCTOR had lurched to her feet, rocking the boat in a way that had them all gasping and clutching the sides for balance. “I think we could all do with some R&R,” she’d announced. “Somewhere warm and sunny.” She’d gone on to describe a world of miles’ long beaches, endless sunshine and all the ices and cold beer they could want.

“We’re going to Australia?” Graham had joked, through chattering teeth.

“Like Australia, but better,” she’d promised, brushing wet strands of hair behind her ear. “No harmful UV radiation or dangerous wildlife. I promise you, it’s probably the most beautiful and peaceful beachside resort in the known universe.” 

So of course, Yaz had been half expecting something to go horribly wrong.

They’d gone swimming in a pink ocean under a lavender sun, a great moon hanging in the sky above them, the four of them dressed in elbow to knee swimming togs like something from the olden days, The Doctor had retrieved the costumes from the depths of the wardrobe room in the TARDIS. “Perfect,” she’d beamed, holding them up triumphantly. Ryan’s face had been a picture. Yaz had made sure to make an Insta of Graham and him wading gingerly into the ocean.

The Doctor’s nose had been pink for days afterwards. Yaz had found herself having to drag her eyes away from it, the evidence that the Doctor wasn’t perfect. Wasn’t untouchable, at least by the sun.

The Doctor finally stands up, putting a hand to her back as she stretches. She looks around at the bustling square. “The Sldjfkaw are famous for the range of goods available at their markets,” she says. “Some of them quite rare and valuable.”

Yaz glances around at the numerous security personnel stationed unobtrusively around the square. Without her police training she probably wouldn’t have noticed them. “I believe it.”

“You know what else they’re famous for?” 

It’s a rhetorical question, obviously, but the anticipatory glee in the Doctor’s voice is irresistible. “No, what?”

“Tea!”

The guys boggle at the range of blends Yaz brings back. “You know there’s Tetley’s in the kitchen?” Graham says. “I know it can be hard to find, but really….”

“It’s not hard to find,” Ryan says. “It’s on the second shelf above the sink.”

“I wasn’t talking about the _tea_.”

Ryan picks up a black box with writing in no language that looked familiar. Or like it could be written with the human hand. The picture on the box is something that looks like a lily, if you turn it sideways. And squint. “What does this gold sticker mean?” he asks. “They’ve all got them.”

“Safe for humanoids, according to the Doctor.”

“Somehow I don’t find that as reassuring as she probably thinks it is,” Graham grumbles.

Ryan drops the box back in the basket. “Yeah, no thanks,” he says. “I’ll stick with coffee.”

Yaz smirks at him. “Yeah, why don’t you ask the Doctor where _that_ comes from?”

“Nah, what I don’t know won’t do my head in.”

“You hope.”

It becomes a ritual. Yaz makes tea and brings the pot and two cups to the console room of an evening when Graham and Ryan are playing pool or watching a holovid in the giant movie theatre that Ryan had found their second week on board. 

Two comfy armchairs always seem to be there when she arrives, a small table set between them. But Yaz has noticed that when there’s some emergency that brings them all racing into the console room, there’s no sign of the armchairs. It’s almost like the TARDIS itself is providing them when they’re needed—somehow that idea is less absurd than the other option, the one where the Doctor herself is manhandling the chairs in and out of the room. Yaz kind of likes the idea that the TARDIS takes care of them—that it takes care of the Doctor—because the Doctor doesn’t really talk about herself much, but from the odd thing she’s let drop here and there, Yaz thinks she might have been lonely for a long time. Just the thought of that makes something in Yaz’s chest tighten almost painfully.

The Doctor’s face always lights up when Yaz comes in, bearing the tea tray. She’ll usually abandon whatever project had been occupying her attention and fling herself down into the nearest armchair, throwing one leg over one arm of the chair and slumping comfortably. She never asks what type of tea it is. She watches as Yaz pours her a cup and then holds the cup up to her nose as she takes a sniff. Sometimes her brow clears immediately, and she’ll add whatever she fancies to it: lemon, honey, milk, and once, memorably, a handful of gummy bears from the pocket of her jacket. 

Sometimes she doesn’t recognise the brew. She’ll take a careful sip or two and ponder for a moment. One time, her nose had wrinkled (adorably, Yaz couldn’t help thinking) and then she’d spat the liquid back into the cup. She’d tossed the cup back onto the tray with a decisive clatter, spilling the tea everywhere, and stuck her tongue out, rubbing at it with the sleeve of her jacket caught up in the heel of her hand. And that was how Yaz found out that the Doctor really doesn’t like the flavour of custard apple and cinnamon. 

Yaz loves the adventures the Doctor takes them on. She loves exploring the universe, loves meeting aliens (for the most part). Loves being able to help people in need. But most of all she loves these quiet evenings with the Doctor, loves hearing about the things the Doctor’s done, the people she’s met. Loves the way the Doctor listens to her with all of her attention when Yaz tells her about growing up with her boisterous family, her decision to become a police officer and her frustration with the limitations of her job. 

One night, it’s late, they’ve saved a world (again) after lots of running and screaming and near-death experiences. Graham and Ryan have long since gone to bed. Yaz tosses and turns and stares up into darkness. Eventually she can’t stand it anymore. She gets up and goes where her stumbling steps take her, not thinking of anything in particular. She finds herself in the console room. 

And there are the armchairs and the coffee table. And there’s the tray, with the pot and the cups, and when the Doctor sees her, she leaves off what she was doing and pours them each a cup. Yaz subsides gratefully into her chair, tucking her pyjama-clad legs under her. She cradles the steaming cup, breathing in the scent of peppermint. And when the Doctor produces a packet of Jammy Dodgers and offers her one before cramming a whole one into her own mouth and crunching it noisily, Yaz realises that she doesn’t just love her life here.

She loves the Doctor. It feels like it should be more of a revelation, or something she should regret. But when she looks up at the Doctor, at the warm expression in those knowing eyes regarding her, it doesn’t feel like a stupid crush or a hopeless cause, it feels right. She doesn’t know if someone so alien, so ancient, so amazing could ever return her feelings but it doesn’t matter. What Yaz feels is vast as the universe, and there’s room for whatever kind of love the Doctor has to offer.


End file.
